[16kehresmann]

I'm really kind of falling in love with clown fish. Especially the black and white ones. (Totally blanked out on their proper name) and I've been doing a little research but haven't found quite what I'm looking for. . So I thought I'd see if any fellow forum members have ever kept clown fish! If you could give me some tips and how big of a tank I'd need to house them. If I should get a male and a female or female and female? I'm not looking to b get a HUGE tank or anything. ... like I'd like it to be under a hundred gallons. Also what food can I feed clowns? Like can they eat frozen blood worms and brine shrimp? What brand of pellet or flake is recommended for them? How do I make the water salt water. .just add aquarium salt? What kind of filters are recommended? What would I need to keep a live aneome...? And what will I ASK need? Thank you for dealing with all the clown fish noob questions. .

 

[Kiara1125]

I have an ocellaris (which is what you saw. They're called black ocellaris clowns. I have one into a 15g, but I would say 10g minimum for occies. All clownfish hatch as males, so whenever you buy a young clownfish or buy one that's into a group, it's usually a male. As it ages, it will become a female if kept alone. If you buy two, one will stay as a male and they will pair up. You can keep two clownfish into a 20g minimum. You can feed them marine flakes or pellets, even tropical ones as well. I feed mine New Life Spectrum pellets and they love it. They will eat frozen bloodworms and other such things like that. For salt water, you will need marine salt which is usually bought into a 50lb bag for $15. I bought one and it's lasted me over 2 years. You need to buy a test kit and check the salinity VERY CAREFULLY to make sure that it's within a good range, or else the fish will die. My tank stays at 1.25. Any filter will work. People say you need protein skimmers and such, but I've never used it and my reef has been running for over 5 years. I wouldn't recommend a live anemone, since it can actually kill clownfish if they don't adjust properly. I would just get some soft corals such as palys, green star polyps, zoanthids, and such like that. I don't know what you meant by the last question, but live rock is always a good option, but that's very expensive. I use pink fiji caribsea, since it's live and looks really good. It's more like a shell pink, so it looks with with chunks of red. Do you have anymore questions? Good luck on your clownfish!

 

[Kiara1125]

Sorry, I meant 1.025 and I just now caught that. I also forgot to mention that whenever water evaporates, top it up with pure fresh water. Salt cannot dissolve, so it stays in the water. That's why you have to keep a careful eye on the salinity. Thankfully, you can buy tests for that which go into the water. They're called hyrometers.